Category Archives: Reviews

Barbenheimer: Hollywood’s Last Barbecue?

New York Times



The film industry’s happiest weekend in a long time may also be its last happy weekend for many months.

With the dual opening of “Barbie,” Greta Gerwig’s comedy based on the Mattel doll, and Christopher Nolan’s “Oppenheimer,” a biopic about the mastermind behind the atomic bomb, the pop culture phenomenon of “Barbenheimer” is upon us. Though the movies are wildly different in style and tone, by helpfully landing on the same day, the buildup has so captured the public consciousness that many movie fans, who have been slow to return to theaters at all, are eager to watch two of the year’s most anticipated titles back-to-back.

Analysts have predicted a record-breaking box office weekend: “Barbie” will debut well north of $150 million domestically and may even top the opening gross of this year’s champ, “The Super Mario Bros. Movie.” “Oppenheimer,” also in its first weekend, is set to make more than $50 million, a thunderous achievement for a dense, three-hour drama. For a theatrical sector still battered by the pandemic and diminished by the rise of streaming, this potent double win would normally presage popped corks all over Hollywood.

But any champagne will come with caveats, as the two movies open during a dual strike that has brought the industry to a near-standstill.

On Friday, the Hollywood actors’ strike reached the one-week mark, after the 160,000 members of the SAG-AFTRA union joined members of the Writers Guild of America, who have been on strike since May. Both labor actions are expected to last for months, scuttling plans to put new studio films into the pipeline and jeopardizing the ones already set to come out, since actors have been ordered not to promote them during the strike.

Even those cheering the success of “Barbenheimer” fear this weekend’s box-office sugar high might be short-lived. There are no other “Barbie”-level blockbusters on the release calendar until “Dune: Part Two” on Nov. 3, and even that sci-fi sequel could be delayed until next year if the actors’ strike persists, since stars like Timothée Chalamet, Zendaya and Austin Butler would be forbidden to take part in the film’s global press tour.

Already, some upcoming films have had their release plans modified as a result of the SAG-AFTRA strike. The Helen Mirren drama “White Bird” and A24’s Julio Torres comedy “Problemista” were supposed to launch in August and are now without an official release date, while “Challengers,” a tennis romance starring Zendaya, on Friday abdicated its prestigious slot as the opening-night title at the Venice Film Festival, which begins Aug. 30. That film, like the Emma Stone comedy “Poor Things,” had been set for theatrical release in September in order to capitalize on a starry press push at Venice. Now “Challengers” has moved to April 2024, according to Deadline.

Theaters that are barely back from the brink since the pandemic would be tested once again, while the films that were already dated for 2024 might be forced to free up space. And without the usual influx of year-end prestige films, this year’s awards season could look very different — and, in another way, all-too-familiar.

Worst-case scenario: Every studio on the planet decides to move their fourth-quarter movies into next year. Suddenly, the last contenders for awards are ‘Barbie’ and ‘Oppenheimer.’ Then what happens?

Take it from an old newspaperman: Never test what the public can do without. You’d be surprised how much.

‘Jury Duty’s’ Brilliant Verdict


More than 20 years ago, the writers behind The Simpsons had an episode plot so unlikely that its unlikeliness became a plot point. The episode, “The Great Money Caper,” saw the entire population of Springfield conspire to stage a fake trial to teach Homer and Bart a lesson about honesty.

Like so many episodes of the seminal show, the premise was more prophetic than preposterous. Meet Jury Duty, the funniest TV show of the year.

Part Truman show, part Parks and Rec and part Candid Camera, Duty takes one dupe — in this case a bewildered Ronald Gladden — and drops him into a fictitious jury sitting on a fictitious trial for a fictitious crime (it involves urine and t-shirt printing gone awry). It’s far-fetched just enough to be real.

Duty’s beauty is its singular premise: A ‘gotcha’ gag that, unlike so many new series, cannot get bogged down in side stories aimed at generating spinoffs and stand-alone characters. Here, the joke sits deliriously over Gladden’s head as he’s “voted” jury foreman — and thus entrusted with keeping in line a motley crew of don’t wannabes and James Marsden, who plays himself as an actor looking to weasel out of communal duty. It’s his best work since 30 Rock.

The show twists us through unforeseeable turns as the jury is sequestered and taken through the “crime” scene. The actors here are all terrific. A 70-something keeps nodding off. A juror discovers his girlfriend is cheating on him while he’s empaneled. Another brings “crutchpants” for long stands.

Absurd? Quite. But given what we’ve seen in the modern court era, from camera-hungry judges to grandstanding attorneys to dim-witted jurors, the case is utterly plausible.

There are a couple objections. The acting between actors, without Gladden, is simply schtick (though good schtick). And its foray into sexuality is a bit forced.

But given the arid worldview rendered by a writer’s strike that shows no sign of slowing, this is welcome originality and, sometimes, sheer delirium. This is what binge-worthy TV looks like.

So all rise, because Jury Duty has entered the courtroom of reality television.

Television’s Most Unlikely Anti-Hero


Dave is an acquired taste. And you still may not like it, even when you like it.

Such is the bargain with anti-heroes, who have all but died off in a post-covid entertainment climate. Where once anti-heroes ruled the small screen — from Walter White to Don Draper to Omar Little to Tony Soprano — the Irony Age has given way to an era when lantern-jawed superheroes have a brand to protect, copyrights to consider and studio-funded universes into which to be tenured.

Anti-heroes don’t do well in those universes because death isn’t lethal there. Just ask John Wick or James Bond. And (spoiler alert) three of the four aforementioned protagonists die in their vehicles, smashing head-on with a real world anti-heroes typically inhabit.

Enter, then, Dave, FX’s latest series that continues the network’s dominance in the streaming market. Like Atlanta, the network’s other foray into pop culture, Dave examines life in a music business that’s less about beats and more about beat downs and does not give a fuck.

Where Atlanta features multi-hyphenate entertainer Donald Glover, Dave features, well, Dave Burg, aka Lil Dicky, whose lucky to get a single hyphenate as a Jewish rapper. He’s hairy, slouchy, and uncertain as hell — until he’s given a mic. Think Eminem meets Curb Your Enthusiasm, with Jewish angst set to a drum machine.

Even if you’re not a rap or hip hop fan, Dave has some infectious moments that come from its genuine struggles with privilege and appropriation. Murky waters when white meets blight. Change that: Eminem meets Mr. Rogers.

Lil Dicky is a canny dj name for Burg, as LD’s favorite songs tend to be how he got the nickname. In great detail. Dave has a South Park ethos, but with Burg as a real-life Cartman. Lil Dicky believes himself a generational rapper, and his narcissism can run Kaufman deep. And funny. And Kaufman deep and not-so-funny.

That, too, is the anti-hero gamble. Dave as a soul is utterly up for sale — in the form of clicks, likes and retweets. In its third season, the same can be said for the show, just monetized: Dave seems to take commercial breaks every five minutes.

The self help ads are worth the occasional brilliance, though. The singularly named GaTa plays a rapper and Lil Dicky’s hype man — in the show and real life. And it’s his contribution, not Burg’s, that makes the show bounce. He’s bipolar rage on the show, and he literally gives Lil Dicky the one commodity he can’t schtick his way through: street credibility on a racially rickety rollercoaster.

Like any freestyle act, Dave has a flash drive-ful of awkward silences, cultural misreads and racially-tinged flashpoints. But, in testimony either for or against the sheer force of will, Lil Dicky has the mic.